There’s not much visible change in Washington DC following the election: Democrats retain the initiative–a second term for President Obama, Democrats still in control of the Senate, Republicans with blocking power with their House majority. Legislative gridlock remains likely, at least on most issues, but also likely is continued and perhaps even increased decisionmaking by the executive branch, accomplishing by presidential authority what Congress can’t or won’t do.

Sadly, trends in the Democratic Party are not encouraging for proponents of religious freedom. Judging from the election campaign, the party convention and platform, and voting trends, the party has become even less hospitable to religious freedom, including institutional religious freedom. It has become even more committed to marriage redefinition, “reproductive freedom,” and expanded gay rights. There’s good reason for faith-based organizations committed to counter-cultural convictions and conduct to be troubled and on the alert.

And voting trends are also worrisome. It should bother everyone that, according to a Pew Forum preliminary analysis of the exit polls, the Democratic and Republican parties are becoming the homes of the unchurched and the churched, respectively: about 60% of voters who never attend a house of worship voted for the President while about the same proportion of voters who attend worship services at least once a week voted for the Republican challenger. Religious freedom needs allies on both sides of the aisle. And it is troubling that the proportion of voters who have no religious affiliation has grown to one in five-these are voters very skeptical of religion’s public influence (Pew Forum, “‘Nones’ On the Rise: One-in-Five Adults Have No Religious Affiliation,” Oct. 9, 2012).

Organizations and advocates who want to protect religious freedom so that faith-based services can continue to make their uncommon contributions to the common good have a lot of work to do:

* persuading more Democratic officeholders and voters to stand for religious freedom, tolerance, and diversity-even while they are committed to other freedoms and rights;

* persuading more millennials that preserving religious freedom is a key way to foster the common good and is not a underhanded way to promote a dominant church;

* persuading more conservative supporters of religious freedom that it is a practical principle to guide how people with differing convictions can live together and not just an argument for why new rights claims should to be denied.